Safe boxes are used for storing money, legal instructions, important intangible things, and important documents. Most banks lease conventional safe boxes (“CSB”) to their customers for the storage of valuable items. If a subject stored in a conventional safe is a document, the safe can only preserve the document. It is not intended to prove what is on it and when the document starts its existence.
Banks provide conventional safes to customers for their convenience. After a customer rents a safe, the customer can store items in the safe for secure storage. Each time when the customer accesses the safe, the customer must personally visit the safe, present the key to a representative of the bank, and sign an access from which contains access date and time. The bank representative then uses both its key and the customer key to open the safe. This system is safe because the bank employees cannot open the safe without the customer key.
In providing this conventional safe service, the bank keeps track of each access by the customer, but makes no attempt to track the stored items as to their identities and deposit times. Clearly, access to a conventional safe is inconvenient and time-consuming. Banks provide this service probably for goodwill rather for meaningful revenue. The user of the safe must make a trip to the bank for each access, stand and wait in a line for a customer representative, and sign an access log form. Due to the nature of this service, a customer can rent a safe only from a local bank or safe provider.
Since the advent of the Internet, it is obvious that files can be stored on a remote server. The service of accepting and maintaining files on a server, which is accessible by browser, has been long existed. Using a server to keep files is a natural and obvious extension of the server's storage capacity. This storage service may include software backup services. They all have the common goal that system allows the user to get a copy the files from the server if their original files are lost.
Some companies have provided file storage services by using an online file deposit system (“OFDS”) for years. Those companies provide a central server where each of the remote customers is assigned a folder associated with a user account (e.g., a safe name) so that customers can store files. Some companies may provide additional features of improved security for the stored files. For example, the customer may encrypt the files using the password of the user account.
The online file deposit system is similar to the coventional safe in its utility. When the originals of a customer are destroyed by fire, natural disasters, or acts of crimes, the customer may copy the files from the server as the secondary evidence of the lost original files. Such secondary evidence is universally acceptable in court in the case that the originals are unavailable. Even if the secondary evidence is unacceptable in some cases, the file deposit system can help the owner reconstruct information in the original files. However, the system does not provide any proof of the time at which each of the items starts its existence. Nor is it possible to authenticate the substance of the file. For example, after the original is destroyed by a fire, a person can reasonably question if a copy recovered from such a system is a true copy of the destroyed document because the owner is unable to provide good evidence to conclusively exclude the possibility that the file recovered from the server is actually created after the original has been destroyed.
Moreover, the current file deposit system does not fully address all safety issues. In a typical system, the files are encrypted by using the account password. This password must be stored on a server for authenticating the user or owner. Even if the password is stored in a hashed form, it is still possible to reverse the hashed form to the original password. One can write a small program for reversing a hashed password to the original password. This can be done by randomly generating a series of passwords, and use the same hash algorithm to produce the hashed passwords, and compare each of the resulting hashed passwords with the stored hashed password. By repeating this process, when a match is eventually found, the randomly generated password is the real password. Thus, as long as a security measure is based on account password, the files can be accessed by anyone who has access to the server. Moreover, after the password is used in encrypting files, it is very burdensome and risky to change login password. Accordingly, many current vendors do not allow safe users to change passwords.
Nor the security method used in a current file deposit system can prevent hackers from accessing stored files. In such a system, hashed passwords and account names must be kept in a file. If a hacker gets this file by illegal means, the hacker can reverse all hashed passwords to real passwords for all accounts. Therefore, the hacker not only can get login names, but also can get the passwords for decrypting stored files. Therefore, this security method is not safe enough to prevent illegal and illegitimate access. Therefore, any safe system that uses account passwords as encryption keys is not secure enough for storing highly confidential information such as patent disclosure, trade secrets such as product formulas, important financial data and business information, and wills and trusts.
Therefore, there is a need for a new online file storage system for storing files which can be easily accessed anywhere; there is a need for an online file storage system which is safe and secure; there is a need for an online file storage system which can provide proof as to the time of existence of the stored files and the substance of the files when necessary; and there is a need for an online file storage system that allows other users or other persons (i.e., intended recipients) to access the stored files for the purpose of establishing the substance of the stored files; and there is a need for tracking the access history of the files. Due to the substantial differences, such a file storage system is referred to as secured online file lodging system.